Duplicate content and canonicalization confusion
-
Hello,
http://bit.ly/1b48Lmp and http://bit.ly/1BuJkUR pages have same content and their canonical refers to the page itself. Yet, they rank in search engines. Is it because they have been targeted to different geographical locations? If so, still the content is same.
Please help me clear this confusion.
Regards
-
I agree with you. It's all very confusing and little details make a BIG difference. Thanks for sticking with this.
-
Thanks a ton Donna for looking into the issue and helping at this level. I highly appreciate it
Their canonical tags confused me. As you have mentioned, the tags should have been one, I don't know why they are using two different ones. Probably, they have set the different geographic targets in Google Webmaster Tools and with the minor content variation and canonical tags, they want to signal Google to treat both the pages differently. I mean it's a big name in the world of ERP. They can't mess up with the canonical tags.
What do you think?
-
Okay. Let's start over looking at it from a goal perspective. I compared the two pages. Here is the difference between the two in terms of page text, highlighted in yellow - http://63.249.66.211/comparison.html. The differences are in the URL, the phone numbers at the top, a word here and there in the middle, and the 2nd block of text and photo under "Explore Our Solutions".
The first page, which I'll call India, has a canoncial tag pointing to itself. (http://www.sap.com/india/pc/bp/erp.html"/>) .
The second page, which I'll call UK, has a canoncial tag, also pointing to itself. (http://www.sap.com/uk/pc/bp/erp.html"/>).
- If you want both pages to rank and have authority, then you use the canonical tag. You need to use the same canonical tag on both pages. Right now they're different. That will essentially tell Google to treat the two pages as one; to show one or the other in search results, but considate their combined SEO value into one for ranking purposes.
- If you only want one page to rank, then noindex the other.
Does that make more sense?
-
Thanks for the reply Donna but my question is bit different. Could you please take a look at the rel canonical tag of the urls I posted. The content on both the pages is 100% same. The only difference is that they are targeted at different geographic locations. The canonical tags point to the page itself and not any master page.
-
This might help Shailendra - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en. Skim down to (or search for) the part beginning with "This indicates the preferred URL", about half-way down the page.
Bottom line, Google attempts to respect canonical tags but it's no guarantee. Increase your chances by using "absolute paths rather than relative paths with the
rel="canonical"
link element". -
Thanks everyone for the response! But I am still confused. The two links that I have posted in my initial question have exactly the same content on both the pages (targeted at different geographic locations) and their canonical tags do not refer to any master page but to them itself, i.e. canonical tag on page A refers to A and canonical tag on page B refers to B. Please take a look at both the pages: http://bit.ly/1b48Lmp and http://bit.ly/1BuJkUR
Regards
-
Canonical pages still get indexed at Google's discretion.
A related question was asked in March 2013 that I think, explains what you're seeing. I've cut and pasted the relevant part below. Mememax is the author.
"Normally the only thing which will prevent a page from ranking is noindex tag. If you don't want to have it indexed just noindex it, if that page has been laready indexed, put the noindex tag and delete from index using GWT option.
Concerning the canonical tag thing, it will consolidate the seo value in one page but it won't prevent those page to appear in rankings, however you may have two cases:
-
the two or more pages are identical. In that case google may accept the canonicalization and show always the original page.
-
the two or more pages are slightly different, it's the case of paginated pages which are canonicalized using rel next/prev. In that sense the whole value will be consolidated in page 1 but then the page which will be shown in the rankings will be the one which responds to that query, for example if someone is looking for blue glass, google will return the page which shows blue glass listing if that's different from the first one."
-
-
Yes, if they were directly competing against each other, you'd expect one of them to drop out of the rankings. What are they both ranking for?
If they are both showing up in the same search, my guess would be that they are very new and Google hasn't noticed the duplication.
But if you see the ranking in different searches (like Google UK and Google India), then you are probably right, Google does not see them as duplicate since they are being shown to different audiences.
-
Hi,
I am sharing two Matt cutts video on this to clear your confusion.I hope it helps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFf1gwr6HJw
Thanks
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Duplicate content : domain alias issue
Hello there ! Let's say my client has 2 webshops (that exists since long time, so many backlinks & good authority on both) : individuals.nl : for individuals (has 200 backlinks, let's say) pros.nl : exact same products, exact same content, but with a different branding intended to professionnals (has 100 backlinks, let's say) So, both websites are 99% identical and it has to remain like that !!! Obviously, this creates duplicate content issues. Goal : I want "individuals.nl" to get all ranking value (while "pros.nl" should remain accessible through direct access & appear on it's own brand queries). Solution ? Implement canonical tags on "pros**.nl**" that goes to "individuals.nl". That way, "individuals.nl" will get all ranking value, while "pros.nl" will still be reachable through direct access. However, "individuals.nl" will then replace "pros.nl" from SERP in the long-term. The only thing I want is to keep "pros.nl" visible for its own brand queries -> it won't be possible through organic search result, so, I'm just gonna buy those "pros" queries through paid search ! Put links on all pages of pros.nl to individuals.nl (but not the other way around), so that "pros.nl" will pass some ranking value to "individuals.nl" (but only a small part of the ranking value -> ideally, I would like to pass all link value to this domain). Could someone advise me ??? (I know it sound a bit complicated... but I don't have much choice ^^)
Technical SEO | | Netsociety0 -
Duplicate content on job sites
Hi, I have a question regarding job boards. Many job advertisers will upload the same job description to multiple websites e.g. monster, gumtree, etc. This would therefore be viewed as duplicate content. What is the best way to handle this if we want to ensure our particular site ranks well? Thanks in advance for the help. H
Technical SEO | | HiteshP0 -
Localized domains and duplicate content
Hey guys, In my company we are launching a new website and there's an issue it's been bothering me for a while. I'm sure you guys can help me out. I already have a website, let's say ABC.com I'm preparing a localized version of that website for the uk so we'll launch ABC.co.uk Basically the websites are going to be exactly the same with the difference of the homepage. They have a slightly different proposition. Using GeoIP I will redirect the UK traffic to ABC.co.uk and the rest of the traffic will still visit .com website. May google penalize this? The site itself it will be almost the same but the homepage. This may count as duplicate content even if I'm geo-targeting different regions so they will never overlap. Thanks in advance for you advice
Technical SEO | | fabrizzio0 -
Showing duplicate content when I have canonical url set, why?
Just inspecting my sites report and I see that I have a lot of duplicate content issues, not sure why these two pages here http://www.thecheapplace.com/wholesale-products/Are-you-into-casual-sex-patch http://www.thecheapplace.com/wholesale-products/small-wholesale-patches-1/Are-you-into-casual-sex-patch are showing as duplicate content when both pages have a clearly defined canonical url of http://www.thecheapplace.com/Are-you-into-casual-sex-patch Any answer would be appreciated, thank you
Technical SEO | | erhansimavi0 -
Duplicate Content Vs No Content
Hello! A question that has been throw around a lot at our company has been "Is duplicate content better than no content?". We operate a range of online flash game sites, most of which pull their games from a feed, which includes the game description. We have unique content written on the home page of the website, but aside from that, the game descriptions are the only text content on the website. We have been hit by both Panda and Penguin, and are in the process of trying to recover from both. In this effort we are trying to decide whether to remove or keep the game descriptions. I figured the best way to settle the issue would be to ask here. I understand the best solution would be to replace the descriptions with unique content, however, that is a massive task when you've got thousands of games. So if you have to choose between duplicate or no content, which is better for SEO? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ryan_Phillips0 -
Worpress Tags Duplicate Content
I just fixed a tags duplicate content issue. I have noindexed the tags. Was wondering if anyone has ever fixed this issue and how long did it take you to recover from it? Just kind of want to know for a piece of mind.
Technical SEO | | deaddogdesign0 -
Duplicate content
I have just ran a report in seomoz on my domain and has noticed that there are duplicate content issues, the issues are: www.domainname/directory-name/ www.domainname/directory-name/index.php All my internal links and external links point to the first domain, as i prefer this style as it looks clear & concise, however doing this has created duplicate content as within the site itself i have an index.php page inside this /directory-name/ to show the page. Could anyone give me some advice on what i should do please? Kind Regards
Technical SEO | | Paul780 -
Duplicate content question with PDF
Hi, I manage a property listing website which was recently revamped, but which has some on-site optimization weaknesses and issues. For each property listing like http://www.selectcaribbean.com/property/147.html there is an equivalent PDF version spidered by google. The page looks like this http://www.selectcaribbean.com/pdf1.php?pid=147 my question is: Can this create a duplicate content penalty? If yes, should I ban these pages from being spidered by google in the robots.txt or should I make these link nofollow?
Technical SEO | | multilang0